Bob Barnard Track Engineering

What a busy weekend. I have asked before, who schedules this stuff? F1 qualifying on during the first stage of the Tour de France, and then the race on Sunday, not to mention the Wimbledon Finals and the World Cup. Crazy weekend, made worse by Daytona being rained out and run on Sunday so trying to watch Indycar from Pocono and Daytona. Tried to fit in a life between all this. Thank goodness for a long weekend. 

So Indycar at Pocono for a second year, and the race being extended to 500 miles did nothing for the size of the crowd. No wonder they reportedly do not want to finish the contract, there was no one there. Best part of the race was Montoya winning. It was sad to see the footage from back in the 80's when CART raced there to packed grandstands, but then it was Danny Sullivan winning and not a Columbian beating a Brazilian and Australians. Americans love to see Americans winning, look at the US Soccer team and how America stopped to watch them at the World Cup. When asked how to fix Indycar Robin Miller said remove pit speed limits. Really? The racing on the track is boring so let's see them race in pit lane? Is that the best you can come up with? Paul Tracy said when asked on air that he could not say or he would get fired. By who? He works for NBC as a commentator, or is NBC the series promotion company as I suspected. Come on guys, no one wants to watch spec racing with a bunch of drivers no one knows or cares about. Yes it costs more to go back to what worked, but you would then have an audience and sponsors would follow. Someone needs to invest.

Nice to see that Mercedes can share the problems around and keep the Championship alive, but it would be better if the could change Lewis' wheels at the same speed as Nico's. Good race and a full house. The English want to see their men win just as much as Americans. Nasty hit for Kimi though and it would be nice if for once the bridge was built long enough so that the verges do not have to neck in to accommodate it. Personally I would have placed a stack of tires in front of the damaged guard rail and got on with it. The chances of having that accident again were pretty remote. And dare I say it, once again Vettel is beaten by Ricciardo, who did not have to whinge and moan his way past other drivers.

We were treated to a very good race today in Melbourne, much better than most of us expected. All the cars started, albeit three from pit lane, and some got only as far as the first corner thanks to Kobayashi. We can only surmise where Massa would have finished if not taken out after the showing of his young team mate Bottas. Indeed where Bottas may have finished if he had not fallen victim to that wide exit I have spoken of and kissed the wall and broken a wheel. Recovering to finish 7th was a great effort and must give Williams cause for hope. Hamilton and Vettel both demonstrated what a fine line there is between winning and not really starting with this complex car, and Ricciardo after a stellar performance has also found out the hard way. I hope the Stewards get out of Australia OK.

I am glad I waited to write this blog as it took 5 hours for them to decide to exclude him from the results due to exceeding the fuel flow rate. This was not hard as the race finished at 4 am my time, so back to sleep. This fuel flow rule is so complex it does not bear thinking about. How do you have a maximum flow rate of 100kg an hour when you only have 100kg for a whole race? Mercedes are reported as exceeding it in practice, but then the rule was "clarified?" Red Bull are adamant that they did not exceed it, so wait for the appeal. Whatever the outcome Daniel showed he is well worthy to succeed Mark and we can only look forward to more of the same. A very cool drive under a lot of pressure.

Magnussen the younger also showed what we can look forward to, with Jan now being referred to as "Kevin's Dad" by the Corvette team. McLaren have to be well pleased, especially if the Red Bull exclusion holds up.

Mercedes confirmed what we all expected and dominated the race. You had the feeling that Rosberg could have won this by a lot more, but did not need to. He was pulling away from Ricciardo at a second a lap at one point, and even after the safety car closed it all back up just drove off into the sunset, even with the clouds. Hamilton must be gutted, but there again looking forward to the future with positive expectations.

So winners and losers. Clearly Mercedes with Red Bull, Mclaren and Williams all there abouts, Force India with good pace, Toro Rosso not so bad. Ferrari finished both cars in the points, but struggled to really challenge. apparently both cars had electrical issues, but managed them, and Kimi clearly not happy with brake by wire. Still, something to be confident about for the future. Lotus did get both cars to start and ran for more than half the race, with Grosjean getting within 12 laps of finishing. They were ecstatic just to be out there. Marrussia had both cars finish 13th and 14th, but Bianchi lost a lot of laps. Sauber did not look good, but Sutil did the race on one stop, so still tire friendly. Caterham had a race to forget with that first corner brain fade of Kobayashi, for which he escaped punishment, and Ericson stopping with a power problem.

What no commentator, either on TV or in print has mentioned is the sheer fact that the race was run succesfully at a very good pace, and no cars ran out of fuel, despite having 33% less! So the real winner will be us. Can you imagine the impact on our fuel usage globally if we can improve efficiency by 33%! That is huge, and I'm sure that if not racing our vehicles can achieve even more. It now points the way for the foreseeable future that vehicles will be powered by multi-system power plants. Not just electric, we barely have enough of that now let alone powering all those cars, but a mix of carbon based fuels with waste energy being recovered in the form of heat and kinetic energy recovery through braking. Congratulations to the powers that be that forced this change. I must admit to being a doubter, but we have better racing and a strong path forward. Wait till Honda come on board. Congratulations too to the engine manufacturers who have unravelled this complex specification and made cars we will still enjoy to watch. And at the same time giving us purists cars that again require drivers to drive, and be seen to be doing it. 

Also not mentioned was that tires were not an issue for anyone, and there was a considerable reduction in the marbles, which allows more overtaking by itself. DRS did not seem a big factor in most overtaking, and perhaps we can do away with this gimmick.

I cannot finish without mentioning the wonderful NBC coverage. I watch Sky on the computer, but have the TV on just in case the streaming stops, which it does now and again. I do not listen to the NBC commentators of course, and if I relied on seeing the race on NBC I would probably not watch. There must be a sense in the US that viewers cannot concentrate for more than a few minutes, so we have to have lots of ad breaks, and in between cameo pieces about Ricciardo racing a jet on take off, or photos of the new noses etc, etc. Absolute nonsense.

Those of us that live here in the US, and trust me I love to live here, have to suffer through the worst race coverage thanks to SPEED and now NBC. SPEED, aka "The NASCAR Channel and those things owned by NASCAR, "showed the Sebring 8 Hour yesterday. Yes I know it is a 12 hour race, but it seems they did not. Despite Bob Varsha promising we will not miss any of the action they promptly signed off and went to NASCAR practice, not a race, for an hour. They then came back for an afternoon of the usual "infomercials" for other shows on Fox stations, Michelin, Chevrolet, Mazda etc, broken up by the inane commentary. I say commentary, but it is actually huckstering for the series as the station has a vested interest in telling us this is the best racing on earth. How about some honest reporting, and oh yes, some silence so we can hear the cars?

I watched the F1 race via live streaming of Sky, and was delighted when their pit reporter just held his microphone out during a Ferrari pit stop so we could hear it, without the necessary female telling us they were putting on Pirelli tires. SPEED meanwhile left the 12 hour race at 7:30 PM, with three hours to go, and crossed to watch AMA Supercross. That tells me how sports car racing rates! They were to come back at 10:30 pm, and as the race started at 10:45 am we were to be treated to the last couple of laps and the podiums, or a taped delayed version once the result was known by anyone with a computer. Needless to say I did not bother. An endurance race is complex, and it is impossible to follow who is where in each class and on what strategy when the broadcast is so broken up and commentators so stupid. For some reason Radio Le Mans was not working.

Over at NBC, who are covering the F1 races this year, things are very similar. Practice and qualifying sessions were scheduled about an hour or so after the actual times they are going on. Do they think we are stupid? Don't answer that. They obviously think the average viewer is by what they show on Network TV. I cannot complain about their commentators as I did not watch NBC, but knowing Leigh Diffey is one of them is enough. Makes me cringe as an Aussie.